Sunday, July 29, 2012

RA Dickey, the Mets new ACE, silenced the hot Arizona Diamondbacks with yet another tremendous performance by allowing only an unearned run in earning a 5-1 victory. With the win, the Mets ACE raised his record to 14-2. It was a tremendous outing by Dickey who has appeared, since the All Star Break, to be slumping. Not today, Dickey was back to his June self in baffling the D'Backs with his floating, dancing, hovering knuckle ball.

It was announced after today's game that the Mets optioned outfielder Kirk Nieuwenhuis to AAA Buffalo to accommodate the recall of Mike Baxter.

Captain Kirk has lately been acting like unintelligent life form by chasing bad pitches, and striking out an alarming 98 times this year. Mets hitting coach Dave Hudgens said:

"He chased some a little bit. He's got to learn to lay off that fastball
up," Hudgens said. "It's a ball for the most part. They'll try some
soft stuff down, and then they try to elevate fastball. It's just an
adjustment he's going to have to make. They try that on a lot of guys,
and you've got to be disciplined. It's tough, because you see that ball
so good. It's close to your eyes and you see it good, so you react. You
just have to learn to lay off it, because you can't catch up to it."

It was a joy to watch the young outfielder play; giving his all in every play, but this decision has been in the making for a couple of weeks in which the rookies average dropped from around .305 to .250. The amazing thing still is that Bay has only .159 with 18 hits the entire season. Yet, he will get the start until there is too much pressure for the Mets to handle. Amazing what $16M will do.

Upon notification of his demotion, the honest Nieuwenhuis said:

"Right now I'm not contributing. It's something you want to do. It's
something that you need to do. Hopefully I'll get it going down in
Buffalo, and hopefully be back soon."

I couldn't agree more; hopefully Captain Kirk will return to the USS Mets and assume a position in the outfield.